


Matthew Williams, Robot

by mondObelisk



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Abusive Family Relationships, Ace/Aro Characters, Adoptive Relationships, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, Human AU, Mafia hit, Multi, Robot Canada, one-sided relationships, science fiction AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5781136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mondObelisk/pseuds/mondObelisk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matthew Williams, ex-military android for the Canadian Army, celebrates his birthday among his many, highly eccentric friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matthew Williams, Robot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mathew Williams, ex-military android for the Canadian Army, celebrates his birthday amongst his many, exceedingly eccentric friends.

Invisibility wasn't really Matthew's first choice, not now and not ever, but programming was what it was, and he wasn't given the capability to change it. He was built long after the world wars, but somehow the media had given him a whole history during that time, talking about how soldiers knew him, how mysterious bumps in the night, resulting in the lives saved that his nation loved so much, those must all have been him.  
  
They were not him, though -- he had only been built recently, in a small town just north of the Canadian-American border, so little known that it wasn't on a map. To tourists, and many native Canadians alike, the place was invisible, an ironic thing. Matthew Williams was the only surviving robot of his model, and so he was known internationally, but it was a quiet sort of fame; scientists in the field knew him by his model number, but there were no photos of his face now that it was something he actually saw as his, and his name wasn't even present on the census.  
  
His friends, though, seemed to be unaware, and their international roots made Matthew feel a little less isolated. No one in their friend group wanted fame, but most of the stealth robots in Matthew's series had lived -- or failed to live, as it were -- in complete isolation. Their voices were quiet, and they disappeared 'at will.'  
  
Gilbert and Alfred, the pranking duo (read: idiots) had found out rather quickly that Matthew disappeared whenever he was startled. Of course, as the two would always do, they triggered this as often as possible, in front of as many people as possible. At least, Matthew admitted, they had resisted the urge to do so in front of swathes of the public.  
  
Of course, Ivan always enjoyed making people uncomfortable, in a childishly innocent sort of way -- he never wanted to create lasting harm, but a sort of emotional squirming seemed to be Ivan's goal, and so it was that Matthew found himself sat on by the larger nation. The image of his friend's back end looming in his face was rather startling, and that was all he needed for a single fan to start whirring away excess heat as he flickered out of vision.  
  
"Dude," Alfred joked, "where did he go? Matthew? Mattie, are you still here? You didn't leave to buy maple syrup again, did you?"  
  
Matthew tried to respond, anger making his voice tight and hoarse, almost breathy, but he could never speak while invisible. Trust his programmers to add that bypass in, but Matthew could still move, and so he smacked Ivan on the arm, switching to a tapped Morse-code message when no one responded: DON'T YOU EVEN DARE.  
  
Chuckling, Ivan said, "This seat tickles! Do you think is has a bug in it?"  
  
"All of you stop it, leave the poor boy alone," Arthur finally chided, looking up from his tea for long enough to realize what they were doing. Book in hand, he was the image of maturity…or at least, he would have been if it were not for the fact that he only dressed like an 'old man,' as Alfred put it, when he was working, and they were not simply all gathered in Francis' house for some new dish he had invented. Still, with a steaming cup of tea and a hardback novel in his hand, Arthur looked responsible.  
  
He always took on the role of the 'adult caretaker' in their group, despite the fact that he was barely older than most of them, and certainly not actually more mentally developed. Francis and Arthur fought often, yes, and they both claimed that the other was too snobbish, but they both had that flaw in roughly equal measures, if they showed it differently. Where France 'groped' people (although he was actually only obtaining measurements for a new suit, most of the time), Arthur became an acerbic man with barely any tolerance for living things.  
At least Francis could make more than tea-time pastries, which were the only thing Arthur managed to not turn into a lump of carbon.  
  
Maybe the thought of his ever-infamous dinner was what led Ivan to a hasty retreat, but either way, Matthew could move much more freely within moments. Once he calmed down, circuits clicking with danger assessments at a much slower rate, the robot found his image flickering back into view. (Not that he was unable to see himself, though, as he was outfitted with heat sensors and electricity sensitivity, much like a snake or other similar predator, and while visible light was bent around him, heat wasn't isolated from others.)  
  
"There you are, Mattie-oh! We were worried about ya!" Alfred crowed. Matthew restrained himself when he smacked the other just enough to avoid bruising, but where others may cringe and yelp, Alfred just laughed. Pain was something remote to him, mostly because he was strong and resilient enough that he couldn't be damaged.  
  
Not to mention that Alfred had a slight case of a genetic disease wherein he felt no pain. Luckily for him, it wasn't total, but there was certainly a lack of connection between injuries and pain, as if he were constantly pumped full of pain medications. Kiku Honda had quite literally saved his life from that one day, as Alfred had a severe injury where he could not see, but felt it as a mild scrape. Kiku had convinced him to go to the hospital when he spotted Alfred walking down the street with a limp and blood-stained shirt.  
  
Since he was the one to bring Alfred in, they had spent all of the recovery time with Kiku watching, hoping that some family member would drop by, as Arthur had eventually done. Alfred and Arthur's relationship had remained vague and slightly mysterious since then, but Matthew got a feeling that they had known each other since they were young, as Arthur had dropped everything to come watch over Alfred, who was now out of a wheelchair, luckily.  
  
Matthew didn't know the history of everyone else in the room, but Francis and Arthur, he knew, had a brief fling before discovering that no, they really couldn't stand each other's guts. Matthew suspected that they still had the occasional one-night hate-sex fling, but there was no proof, and it was none of his business. Ivan lived with Francis, who had stayed in America even after Arthur had broken up with him, and they were close, but evidently not in an exclusive relationship, judging by the number of pretty people, both men and women, who flitted through the two lives.  
  
Others milled about, but Matthew knew only a few faces, and even fewer names, though the Kirkland brothers were easy to recognize from their 'family curse,' eyebrows which were wonderfully thick. Not a single person in their group who was not a Kirkland found themselves completely without fascination about those islands of hair, but when the shavings were found in Arthur's bathroom, many people stopped asking. Eyebrows which needed to be maintained by an electrical razor just seemed a little too gross to talk about.  
  
"Dinner is served!" Francis called from the kitchen. "As many people as there are, we are serving in the kitchen, and we can all eat wherever." A faint sound of his laugh drifted from the kitchen, as if he had just muttered something to himself along the lines of and you can even join me in the bedroom if you want! Arthur rolled his eyes, but even his partially-faked hatred could not go so far as to refuse the food which was waiting, as the smell of it alone was bliss.  
  
Matthew got to the kitchen first, and Francis, who had adopted Matthew as a sort of younger-brother-love-interest (not that the last part was rare -- he seemed to be unusually open to romance, and loved people much too easily), nodded to the fish on rice, a reddish curry over it.  
  
"Coconut curry, right?" Matthew guessed. Francis didn't even respond, just smirked a little and sashayed out of the room with a plate in one hand, and his wine in the other. ('A good cook can never work without wine, my dear Matthew.') As Matthew began plating everything, adding some of the sweet potatoes for good measure, Kiku stepped up next to him, short and slender, bowing slightly out of habit as he started to talk.  
  
"I am very sorry about Alfred," he began. "I have learned how quickly he can become a handful. I keep trying to tell him not to do that, but he never listens." His accent had thinned out considerably after he came back to America a second time, deciding to stay in the city with all of the lunatics, but it was still evident that he hadn't learnt all of the English phonemes as a young boy.  
  
"Don't worry about it!" Matthew replied, then lowered his voice into a conspiratorial whisper and added, "I may have gotten used to his mischief, but that just means that I can retaliate all the better." Kiku laughed politely, but his eyes were warm, and so Matthew nodded and turned to leave, walking out with controlled grace. Alfred always said that he looked like a hunting jaguar, and despite the cliché, Matthew knew that he would need to stop that movement if he didn't want to scare people.  
  
The room cheered when he got into the living room, and Matthew blinked rapidly, edges shimmering for a moment before settling. Lights dimmed as they always were for Francis' dinners, and candlelight from the next room flickering on the walls, it was almost unforeseeable that there was a large cake in the middle.  
  
"Every year," Elizaveta spoke up, smiling gently. Matthew frowned, both at the oddness of the statement and her sudden presence after cancelling earlier, and she elaborated, "You forget your own birthday every year."  
  
The room nodded solemnly, and Matthew felt himself blushing, protesting, "I wasn't born, you guys, I was manufactured. It's not the same; I wasn't even myself." Francis laughed, drifted out of the shadow from the next room with no plate, and patted Matthew on the shoulder.  
  
"Non, silly, we don't mean that. That's next month anyway. We mean birthday, the day that you were born as Matthew Williams, when they gave you your emotions and set you free," he reminded, voice soft and gentle. No wonder he was trying to be gentle, either; Matthew was starting to feel himself choke up, and he shook his head, blinking rapidly to clear the tears, even as the plate was gently taken from his hands.  
  
"You guys..." Matthew sniffed, aware that he was acting a little bit too sensitive to be found respectable, but Alfred was smiling, eyes crinkled at the corners. Hands prodded Matthew to the coffee table where the cake lay, and he came close before kneeling in front of it to watch the flames, at the right level to properly blow the candles out.  
  
When the group burst into song, the tune and rhythm was the only thing the same between them all, as every single person sang in their native language. As Matthew glanced around, he saw even Roderich, Elizaveta's ex-husband, who she still dragged along everywhere as if they were married, and Gilbert's little brother, Ludwig, as well as Feliciano and Lovino Vargas, the latter of which was glaring at the door.  
  
After a clamorous stop, they told Matthew to make a wish, and he let himself short-circuit to create something random. Even he was unsure of how to put it into words, because this sort of short-circuiting was the exact thing that could not be articulated in any language, comprehensible only to the one thinking it, but he blew out the candles with the whirr of a fan for effect.  
  
"Everyone," Matthew responded once the clamour died down enough for him to speak over, "although the cake looks amazing, I think we should have dinner before it gets cold. It looked and smelled amazing, and unless it was fake, I am eating it."  
  
Alfred booed at him jokingly, adding. "You've gone all sappy on us, Matt!" Ivan smirked at the hyperactive teenager, but no one noticed, grabbing their dinners from where they had been put down to eat. Someone Matthew didn't register recognition for handed back the fish and curry, and he folded his legs right there to begin eating.  
  
Gossip and small talk bounced around the room, and Matthew watched it all with interested eyes, trying to see if his predictions for the last group meeting were correct.  
  
Lovino was, of course, as grumpy as ever, which was never an idea even in question, but Matthew noticed that he was rubbing his fourth finger wistfully. Without Antonio there, Matthew didn't know if that meant that Antonio had proposed as expected, but with no ring there, Lovino had obviously not accepted, not yet. (He would, of course. No one watched for someone's entrance while feeling where a ring would go if they didn't want to accept, not even Lovino.)  
  
Matthew had also expected that Ludwig and Feliciano would have made a move on each other, but from the blushes and embarrassed huffs of breath from Ludwig, it hadn't quite happened yet. Doubtless, Ludwig was near the breaking point, but Feliciano would wait for as long as possible, acting clueless and naïve in the meantime, and Ludwig would be actually clueless, and too trepidatious to make a move. Matthew would have to put a word in about that with Gilbert, and maybe the older brother would stop laughing at the whole mess for long enough to get Ludwig a little bit drunk one night. Slurred confessions were far from romantic, true, but Feliciano would be too happy to mind, and if Matthew had to watch Ludwig struggle with his sexual repression for any longer, he would likely end up having to bone the guy himself. It was sickening to watch, but Matthew had no desire for a one night stand.  
  
Finally, he glanced around the room for anything else to make predictions on. Elizaveta and Roderich were still sitting side by side, and Elizaveta's hand was comfortably enough on Roderich's knee that Matthew figured something was going on. No surprise there, really; the two had been an arranged marriage, and had fallen into companionship, if not love, just before their families decided that they were not really meant to be rich together. That was the Edelstein aristocracy for you, Matthew supposed. Gilbert, though, was hanging around the fringes, making the sort of big-headed comments that showed he was a lonely man, with deep insecurities, and was trying desperately for flirtation, though the albino still didn't have a clue how that worked.  
Matthew didn't need a prediction to see what would happen there; Elizaveta and Gilbert had a long-standing cycle: Gilbert tried to 'flirt,' and became more and more annoying until he was smacked in the face with Elizaveta's frying-pan shaped purse, a novelty from the London store where she had first met Arthur.  
  
"You always focus on the romance too, don't you, mon cher?" Francis asked from behind him. Matthew jumped a little, flickering out of view, and then turned. Francis was chuckling, sitting behind Matthew, backlit by the dining room, just out of the living area's light, sprawled comfortably on the floor.  
  
"Not sure what you mean," Matthew protested weakly, but as Francis laughed again in disbelief, Matthew turned back, speaking quietly enough to be private. "I always predict what might happen between these gatherings, and the next time I try to figure out if I was right. Never ask anyone, though."  
Francis was suddenly more serious, laughter having ceased, and Matthew wondered absently if the man was drunk, but that thought fled when Francis murmured sadly back, "I was afraid of that. It is the curse of the lonely, I suppose, but that could be the wine talking."  
  
It didn't take much for Matthew to understand what Francis meant, and he responded, "It's a coping mechanism, yes. You're right about that. But it isn't so bad; I don't really want a relationship. I just get cold, sometimes, at night, and lonely. I want company, but..."  
  
"You don't want romance?" Francis guessed. Matthew turned back, nodding gently, and scraped up the last of his curry-infused rice. A single eyebrow lifted, and Matthew saw from that and the tilt of Francis' mouth that he was surprised and impressed. "Is it constant?"  
  
"Nearly," Matthew responded. "Sometimes, with certain people, I want what people call romance, but I don't know. I don't have an interest in sex, for sure, and that's thought of as such a common thing in courting that I don't know if it is." Francis scoffed, eyes twinkling.  
  
"A man has needs, they say, right?" Matthew frowned, nodding at Francis' odd question, and waited. Taking a small gulp of wine, Francis continued, "Most often, when people say that, they mean sex, but it doesn't have to be. I think Arthur is that way a bit, too, but it is hard to tell. Either way, a man has needs, yes, but that is part of being…alive." Matthew knew that Francis was going to say 'human,' wanted to say it, even, but didn't want to make Matthew uncomfortable.  
  
"You accept this very easily, Francis. I never expected that from you," Matthew remarked dryly.  
  
"Have you ever wondered why there are so many people that pass through? I have a high sex drive, this is true, but not to any one person. It is common for people to want to mate with everything they see, if you listen to the sitcoms, but it is not so common, and certainly not universal." France sighed, tilting his head back and leaning on one elbow to look at the ceiling, long ago painted to look like a surprisingly realistic galaxy. "Some people have strong attraction to people but no sex drive. Some people have a strong desire for sex and the feeling it brings, but no people to attach that desire to, like moi, but people can be anywhere in either of those spectrums. Cher, do not be so hard on yourself because you are not 'up to standards' in the eyes of society. Society is almost always wrong."  
  
Matthew frowned. "You know a lot about this. Have you studied it?" Francis chuckled, shaking his head, and didn't respond for a long while, eyes opening and closing slowly. Matthew knew it, their sign to each other that it was all right, that no danger was present. After a deep breath, which Matthew found was surprisingly shaky, he nodded. "I think you're right, either way. But I do want romance sometimes."  
  
"Either way, Matthew," Francis sighed. "I honestly don't care. Don't refuse all love, but that can be familial, or platonic, or romantic, or sensual, or sexual. Love is so many different things that it can barely have one name for them all. I have studied how people work, oui, but I have no better knowledge of you than yourself."  
  
"Merci, Francis," Matthew murmured. He found his eyes glancing around the room, hoping for that tug that meant longing, the centre of so much teen romance, so many novels, and Francis smiled in Matthew's peripheral.  
  
"Happy birthday, Matthew. Now go, have fun! This is your party, you should enjoy yourself. So long as the house isn't burnt down and there are no police, I think you can celebrate however you want." Francis chuckled before taking the empty plate, and pushed Matthew away with a foot. "Go!"  
  
Matthew sat next to Kiku in the end, partly because it was the only open seat, and partly because everyone else seemed to have the idea of cuddling and flirting on their mind. Matthew didn't feel like that, not now, although the warmth and consistent rhythm of a human body pressed against himself was comforting beyond comparison.  
  
Alfred smiled across the room, and shook a baseball cap for the New York Yankees at Matthew, half-shouting for him to put something in for seven minutes in heaven. Matthew rolled his eyes, shaking his head exasperatedly, but Alfred refused to stop.  
  
Eyes narrowed, Arthur watched them before hissing something into Ludwig's ear. The German man, hair still slicked back in a business-like fashion, nodded, getting reading to distract Alfred. Matthew appreciated the token, but knew that it would end in whining for the next week and a half, so he dropped a coin into the collection. It was a token he kept from his old town, and he knew it would be unique, so he ignored Alfred's raised eyebrow.  
  
"I need to seem to be talking to you, Kiku," he said. It was quiet enough that Alfred would not know what it said, but loud enough to blend with the rest of the sounds, hands making animated motions like they always did when he was in an exciting conversation. Kiku nodded, smiling, and Matthew grinned back.  
  
“Alfred can be quite the obstinate person, can’t he?” Kiku asked, murmuring at a level that was barely loud enough for Matthew to hear. A moment of fear and paranoia shot through Matthew, and then he took a deep breath, letting himself relax. It was the first of July, a little bit overly heated, and he needed to keep himself together before adapting his circuitry. Overheated hardware almost always made him just a little bit jumpy, likely as an old warning sign for the researchers in order to keep everything running properly.  
  
“Yes, he can be, but at least he means well,” Matthew absentmindedly replied. Kiku hummed in agreement, and Matthew smiled slightly. “At least he doesn’t live with me. I don’t know how Arthur deals with that, still being the caretaker.”  
  
A twinkle shot through Kiku’s eyes, although they were usually a bit dull, and his mouth nearly twitched into a smirk as he said, “They have their own certain compromises, I believe.” Matthew would have asked more, but Alfred was shouting his name, and so the metal man stood, bowing his head to Kiku.  
  
Without a word, Alfred shoved Matthew into a closet, lights out. It was not an unusual game, and it usually meant very little, and Matthew was startled by a voice and turned invisible and silent until the seven minutes passed. Happy birthday to him.  
The light from the door spilled in again, and Matthew looked up, frowning, wondering who the heck was here, and then someone stumbled in. Whoever it was had too much backlighting to be seen by normal means, so Matthew switched his heat sensing to a visual display, and looked at the man.  
  
Emotions made many different changes to a human’s body, he had found, and it was disconcerting to be able to know whatever was in someone’s head, but this person was not something he could recognise; perhaps this had a little bit too much of mixing to be sure. Heavy footsteps plodded just into the room, and then the door shut, and everything was in complete heat signatures. Matthew could easily have turned on a couple of lights, as he had plenty of them to be able to use them, but the last time he had done so it had revealed a drunken Austria, who yelled for the light until Alfred stuck his head in and doubled their time for Matthew’s cheating.  
  
“You already know who I am, so you might as well speak up,” Matthew chided softly. The other chuckled, and Matthew was suddenly not so sure that it was a man. The voice was high, but it could easily have been so through some artificial means, an intentional control. Either way, they didn’t say a single word, and Matthew found himself fidgeting quietly.  
  
It took three minutes and forty-seven seconds until the other spoke up, slurring slightly as they said, “You should know me by now, Matthew.” Frowning behind his glasses, Matt shook his head. Another chuckle sounded out, and the voice continued, “I am surprised. Everyone forgets you, but I never thought that you would forget one of us.”  
  
“Well, I can’t recognise much of anything with this lighting,” Matthew explained cautiously. “Maybe if you said a name, I would know?” He would have recognised them by now, though, and that was certain, because he always recognised voices, and nothing about this person was familiar. A slight hiccough was heard from the other, and then quiet laughter again.  
  
“No, I think we should start this game.” It was a single sentence, and should have meant nothing, but there was such a tone of finality that Matthew became suddenly panicked, flickering out of view and noise. The other laughed again, and Matthew sighed, recognising the voice at last.  
  
“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” Matthew asked. Finally, the other man laughed, and Matthew shook his head, fading back into view. “Gilbert, that was not cool. I thought you were serious!”  
  
“I was,” Gilbert replied gravely, voice wavering back to the usual tone while still drunkenly slurred. “I was very serious about pranking you.” When he laughed, his lack of motor control sent spittle flying at Matthew, and he grimaced at the smell of beer. “But I wouldn’t actually do that to you. Hey, can I sleep on your lap?”  
  
Eyes narrowed, Matthew answered, “If you aren’t planning anything...douche-y, then yes. But if you’re trying to prank me again, then you can fuck off.” Gilbert grunted, and Matthew could tell that he was feeling his way towards a soft spot, beer in one hand, though he was using both arms as feelers, so alcohol sloshed over the rim onto the carpet. “Here,” Matthew murmured, “I’m over here, so just go straight. I’ll let you know when you’re close, just...please, stop spilling beer on the closet floor. Francis hates that stuff, and he would never forgive any of us.”wards his lap. “Last time we had any other smell in a room of his, he ended up refusing to speak to us for a month.”  
  
“True enough,” Gilbert grunted, and Matthew reached out to steady the man, bringing him in to  
  
Shaking his head, Matthew corrected, “He refused to speak to you or Alfred, since you were the only two with the taste to want pickle flavoured vodka, and that was the spill.” Gilbert made a surprised noise, though he was already drooling on Matthew’s knee, and the albino was beyond the point of being able to speak. Still, it was obvious that the others claimed that it was all of them to spare the two dimwits’ pride.  
  
Another two minutes later, the door opened, and Matthew shaded Gilbert’s eyes from the light, even as the other winced back, tightening his lids. Alfred frowned, and then looked down to the man with a beer clutched in his fist like an infant does a milk bottle, pulling it closer in as he shifted until the bottle was resting on his chest, staining his shirt with the residue; Matthew was merely impressed that the other was still wearing a shirt.  
  
“He needs to rest,” Matthew whispered, “and I don’t think I can move without waking him or spilling out the rest of whatever beer he has left.” For once, Alfred did the wise thing, nodding quietly and backing out, shutting the door as gently as possible.  
  
Gilbert didn’t wake until Francis came to knock on the door to ask for cake, at which point he jumped up, looking at the gently glowing lights on Matthew’s glasses, and then started to splutter, defending that he didn’t care that Matthew was there, and that being alone was just so awesome that he couldn’t believe he spent time with someone else. Not wanting to hurt the other’s pride, Matthew didn't argue, just went out and enjoyed the cake, which was dark enough chocolate that Matthew didn’t even have an inkling feeling that Alfred would break another lamp. Distraction at its finest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the manuscript from 2014's National Novel Writing Month, and, although not complete, is currently 60,000 words long. For those of you who enjoy length, you're welcome. For those of you who don't, I am sorry.
> 
> My thanks go out to all who have read this chapter, and I am deeply grateful for any and all comments and kudos.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written last year as the National Novel Writing Month, and is currently unfinished but 60,000 words long. For those of you who like long fics, congratulations! For those of you who do not, I apologise.
> 
> My thanks go to all readers, and I am deeply grateful for any comments or kudos you wish to leave.


End file.
